Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1887-02-11
SfsAMS 4 Nd FRAlJy5. ]:
i SomeE Unvarnished Truths s. About sssassh.
s$;5s ety'' at Tho Nationals Gil pita.. /

q
! Aithong here is .a GREAT show taLnt,,
.anJy amount al tofI 4. social position ;, and
s'srank IA ~ Kashin tofl, there IS not an
equal ano ount 81 wealth to support it in
sstWo-t thirds Of the eases. ! The. majority
! OF those who shine i'll society and are
the most Il prominent and iirrapressible
are dependent on Cove ernme1t salaries,
and it takes close man agelnent to make
them suffice for plain living and place
in society. Many Of the Senators are
wealthy; but they are the only ones, as
q class, who have. great wealth; and
the moneyed people, as the rich winter
residents who come only as private cit
liens are called, are easily counted.
Each season Washington runs over
with heiresses, and penniless girls, and
widows who come to Washington as to
a great matrimonial market, and wear
themselves half out in the struggle to
get into and keepin society Rich men
never come to hunt Tor wives in this
modern smithfield, and when New
York millionaire did take Washing
ton bride it'Fas pretty girl in strait
'ened circumstances, who had never
been known in the. society OF army and
navy germans and legation balls.
Young arhy and naval officers
are the most 1nercinary lot 81
all, and they invariably save up
their leaves of absence to spend them
Fin Washington during the winter
months. 4 Cne miscreint in epaulets
once Mortified some married ladies by
saying: 1T pays us poor fellows on
short: commons to pass a season in
Washington sending bouquets and
spending all our money on the girls;
for all the rich girls go there, and their
fortunes are only equivalents for the
social position that we can give them"
Sometimes these gay spectators get
terribly sold, ss not every papa that
passe>4 for a millionaire is really one,
and heircss is a name very easily tick
eted to a girl who dresses well. Re-
Gently there has been q notorious case
@of one Of these uninfGrmed fortune
hunters getting the sNpposed heiress
after long siege, only to find too late
that the fortune was all in the air. VAN
ished, gone ZIP like smoke. To balance
this there is the case of another young
officer who, although en- gagged to great
he1iess now in Europe finishing her
French and buying her trousseau, longs
to be released from those golden fet-
ters to marry a penniless orphan EN-
pIoyed in one of the departments here.
People who believe in the old-fashioneu
love stories admire and sy1npathize
deeply with this crooked course of true
love, but his brother officers think the
distracted youth a .plain and simple
lunatic:
a joke is often told on one very
punctilious army officer, who in the
course OF frontier experiences found
his ex-laundress the wife of Congress-
man. The la1lndress' rise and the
growth of her husbands fortune could
not bring the ladies of the fort to rec
@gnize her; and this particular officer,
although now {. General, could remem-
Der some stormy scenes, when, as a
poor young Liclltenant, he had scored
sand upbraided the laundress about
matters Of starch, buttons and plain
mending She fell in his way next at
some celebration or event where. her
husband, the Congressman, was in one
OF the front carriages of the process
sion, and she, the gorgeous figure, OH
the platform crowded with the 1istin-
gulshed people Of the day. The Cen
eral in his uniform was introduced and
he'Noice and face sent his. memory
chasing backwards. just about as the
'identity was becoming clear her talk
went on to the winter that she had just
passed in Washin gton. Her comments
.on society and people at the capital
wound up conso]ingly with this: 20,
yes! found, too, that army oflicers}ge
in quite good society at Washington. '''
When this got into army gossip it fur
nished as much amusement as a re-
mark that once rose above the hum Of
voices at q dinner party here when the
same woman, who looked sixty and
wore a raven-black. wig over "a face
scanned with a hundred wrinkles, sim
peringly. said: es, / mean to wear
baby blue until | 5anl thirty = - z Wash
s7agto's Cor. ST. :]loa1is (7flobe-D Democrat. !.